224 WILD. WHITE CALLE. 
everywhere decreased, except in places where “liberty 
to inclose” forest land was granted by the king to 
influential nobles or deserving courtiers. Great 
tracts of forest were from time to time inclosed 
within a pale, haye, or wall, with the game and wild 
animals they contained, or with others driven in, and 
these inclosures became parks. Thus the land and 
all that it contained was secured for ever to the 
person having the liberty to inclose, and no one could 
thereafter enter or interfere without subjecting him- 
self to severe penalties.* 
This was the saving of the wild cattle, which, 
except for the protection thus afforded them, would, 
like the other animals mentioned, have become 
extinct centuries ago. 
Many such ‘‘licenses to inclose” (some of very early 
date) are still preserved, and furnish, in not a few 
instances, a clue to the history of private herds of 
wild white cattle. In enumerating the herds which 
are known to us, and concerning which some historical 
notices are to be found, it will perhaps be convenient 
to take them alphabetically, those which are still 
existing being distinguished by an asterisk. 
ARDROSSAN CASTLE, AYRSHIRE.—Although of 
unknown origin, it is certain that a herd of white 
wild cattle, with black ears and muzzles, existed here 
* Storer, op. cit. pp. 75, 76. By Stat. Westminster, I. c. 20, 
trespassers in parks might be compelled to give treble damages 
to the party aggrieved, suffer three years’ imprisonment, be fined 
at the King’s pleasure, and give surety never to offend in the like 
kind again; and if they could not find surety, they had to abjure the 
realm, or, being fugitive, were outlawed. 
